THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES THE year that has lately closed has terminated the first century since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In the reckoning of history the period is not a long one. In the accelerated pace of modern times it has been long enough to form that instrument into a complete system of government, and to test pretty thoroughly its efficacy and value. In its origin it was a striking and, in many respects, an original experiment. In its republican form it was substantially without precedent. It was the product of conflicting opinion, proposed in doubt, ratified with hesitation. The States which adopted it were small and struggling, exhausted and impoverished by a long war, with no central government worth the name, no credit, no finance, no certain outlook for the future. The hundred years of its history have seen the civilization, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, of the continent on the margin of which its administration began; the increase of its subjects from three millions to nearly sixty millions; the rise and maturity under its protection of a great and powerful nation, whose growth has been phenomenal, and whose future lies beyond the field of prediction. As its institutions |